Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and NASA Aren’t the Only Ones Who Can Pull Off a Successful Launch

Good beer, good music, and a good book. That was the theme for the launch celebration of The Old Crocodile Man Theory, which was held at Roundhouse Brewery in Nisswa, MN on June 13, 2021. It was a scorching hot 91 degrees. Hans Blix and the Weapons Inspectors played some tunes. My wife, Denise, passed out fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies when she wasn’t taking money from people (for books, not cookies). I signed books for an enthusiastic crowd that wasn’t limited to just family and friends. I read aloud a chapter that introduced my main character, Kael Husker, and the plot of my story – the murder of Kael’s old friend, Molly, in Central Africa with an unusual twist – the murderer was a crocodile man. In the audience, I saw many friends I hadn’t seen recently because of COVID-19 protocols, and some traveled several hours to show their support or to maybe just escape their own pandemic prisons that have kept them confined for the last 15 months. My publisher, Chip Borkenhagen with River Place Press, was there with his family, sitting strategically between an umbrella and a cold beer to escape the effects of the sun. It was a day every author and every astronaut looks forward to – their first launch. Maybe prolific writers like John Grisham or Stephen King have grown weary of doing these kinds of things, but I suspect they were as excited as I was when their first novel was released for public consumption. How can you not be when strangers tell you how enthusiastic and appreciative they are to get their hands on your book? It was an experience I won’t soon forget.

To stay true to the novel, which takes place mostly in the Central African Republic (C.A.R.), we draped African cloth over the table where we sold and signed books and gave away free commemorative Crocodile Man bookmarks to those who don’t espouse the belief that bookmarks are for quitters. The sun beating down on us in Nisswa reminded me of the African sun, which keeps most people indoors or in the shade for several hours when it is at its apex in the sky. Apparently, readers refuse to let the sun’s rays get between them and a good book.

I wore my “Mbi ye Mocaf” shirt, which was made for me by a Central African tailor using a manually operated sewing machine. Mocaf is the local beer made in the C.A.R.’s capital city of Bangui. As I wrote in The Old Crocodile Man Theory: “Mocaf wasn’t a great beer, but it was one of the few constants in a country of shortages, setbacks and unpredictability. Mocaf was one of a handful of businesses in Bangui to turn a legal profit every year, and its products could be found in even the tiniest of villages. The appearance of a tall, room-temperature Mocaf at the end of a long day kept many a frustrated Peace Corpse, including Kael, from hopping on the next available flight out.” In the national language of Sango, “Mbi ye Mocaf” means “I love Mocaf,” and on those days when you felt far from home and cast adrift in a sea of frustration, that sentiment wasn’t an exaggeration.

On June 13, I was in a sea of support, a river of ready readers, a pond of positivity, and like my book, an ocean of oddball characters. It was spectacular, and it was as appreciated as a warm Mocaf on a bad day.

Two Too Good

In 2020, the world lost two of its most talented musicians – John Prine and Tony Rice. I have spent many hours listening to their virtuosity and sorely realizing that my own musical talents were better suited for the shower than for stadiums. They were two of my favorites, but for different reasons. No one wrote a song better than John Prine, and no one did more with an old Martin guitar than Tony Rice.

I discovered John Prine when I was in high school in the 1970’s. His humor was what first grabbed me. You can’t listen to Dear Abby without smiling.

Dear Abby, Dear Abby

Well I never thought

That me and my girlfriend would ever get caught

We were sittin’ in the back seat just shootin’ the breeze

With her hair up in curlers and her pants to her knees.

Signed… Just Married

I soon discovered that he also had a deeper side to him – the side that wrote songs like Sam Stone and Angel from Montgomery. Like Shakespeare, he was a master at writing both comedy and tragedy. He had a special talent walking that tightrope between humor and humanity. One wrong step and he could crash to the ground. He never fell.

The structure of every John Prine song was simple – often just three basic chords that most guitar players learn during their first lessons – but what he did with the lyrics was otherworldly. Look at what he wrote in Far From Me:

Well I leaned on my left leg

In the parking lot dirt

And Cathy was closing the lights

A June bug flew, from the warmth he once knew

And I wished for once I weren’t right

Why we used to laugh together

And we’d dance to any old song

Well you know she still laughs with me

But she waits just a second too long

Brilliant! No one did more with three chords than John Prine. When he played his guitar, he rarely left the first position – those frets closest to the tuning pegs. I saw him in concert once, and he pointed to the rest of his guitar neck that led down to the body of his guitar and said, “See all this here? It is unexplored territory.”

Tony Rice, on the other hand, moved around his fretboard like it was the community where he grew up. He knew every road, every footpath, and every place worth visiting. He fused bluegrass with jazz and made a sound come out of his pre-War Martin that was both down-home and sophisticated. He was lightning-fast, and every note was clean and precise. I worshipped him for being so good, but cursed him under my breath for making my own guitar playing look and sound so pedestrian.

I loved that Tony Rice lived comfortably in the two worlds of tradition and innovation. When he performed live, he wore nice suits like all the other traditional bluegrass musicians. He also liked playing traditional songs that were first performed by Flatt and Scruggs and Bill Monroe. But his guitar playing was anything but traditional. You couldn’t hear a Tony Rice solo and not recognize it as such. No one else could do what he did with a guitar and an imagination.

I’ve tried incorporating the qualities of John Prine and Tony Rice into my writing. Like John Prine, I strive to find that sweet spot where a gasp is not far from a giggle. In The Old Crocodile Man Theory, there’s plenty of humor, but it’s also a story of compassion, friendship, fatherhood and redemption. You can’t deal with those heavy topics without a bit of humor. At least, I can’t. Like Tony Rice, I want someone to read what I’ve written – in a novel, a story, a blog, a letter, an email, even a shopping list – and say, “That has Hunsicker all over it.”

For John Prine and Tony Rice, two old friends to my ears, I share an old Irish blessing that my friends gave to me when I left them to take on a new adventure thousands of miles away in Alaska. For readers of The Old Crocodile Man Theory, you will recognize it as the blessing that Pere Norbert gave Kael.

May the road rise up to meet you,

May the wind be always at your back,

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

The rains fall soft upon your fields,

And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Designing a Cover

Africa is known for its cloth. The colors are vibrant, and the patterns are as diverse as the continent. It’s used mostly for making fashionable clothing, but it can also be used to make napkins, tablecloths, sheets, and curtains. So, when I was collaborating with my publisher and partner, Chip, to come up with a cover design for The Old Crocodile Man Theory, I suggested we somehow incorporate a piece of African cloth that screamed, “Africa!” Chip was at his computer playing around with other ideas to use in the cover design when his eyes were drawn to a corner of his office. There, sat a dusty 4-foot tall artistic piece that had been given to him years before. It looked like a crocodile. He cleaned it up, took a picture of it, set the image on top of the African cloth, and we had our cover.

African cloth is sometimes used as a wearable piece of advertising. For example, the former leader of the Central African Republic (C.A.R.), Jean Bedel Bokassa, had a cloth made that was plastered with his mug and that of his first wife, Catherine. If you turned a piece of that cloth into a tablecloth, you could eat every meal with the country’s corrupt leaders at your side. I suppose if you turned the cloth into sheets, you could sleep with them. I once came across a piece of cloth that was made to promote a brand of condoms called Prudence. Their slogan was, “Love with Prudence.” Turned into sheets, that cloth would be one final reminder before you did something you might regret later.

When I directed the Dzanga-Sangha Dense Forest Reserve in the C.A.R., we worked with a textile manufacturer in the capital city of Bangui to design a cloth that would promote the Reserve and elephant conservation. We used a simple drawing of an elephant walking away since that is often how you see elephants – from behind. Plus, it was a subtle comment on the fact that elephants were going away, disappearing due to poaching. I don’t think that cloth was a top seller, but it was fun to occasionally come across some Central African woman who wore an outfit made from a cloth that I had a hand in designing.

That was back in 1991 or so. Now it’s 2020, and COVID-19 is in the air. My wife, Denise, decided to make some masks for each of us. We still had some of the Dzanga-Sangha cloth packed away in a bin, so I now sport a mask that lets everyone know that I have no taste whatsoever in cloth design, but I care deeply about elephants. Denise also made me a guitar strap from an assortment of African cloth, including Dzanga-Sangha and Prudence. My guitar heroes – Doc Watson, Tony Rice, and Norman Blake – can beat me to the end of a flatpicked fiddle tune, but I beat them every time when it comes to sporting a unique, Africa-inspired guitar strap. I’ve learned that Dzanga-Sangha cloth is versatile; it can also be turned into great Christmas stockings. Ours hangs on our mantel, and they remind us every year, even in non-COVID years, that protecting elephants is always fashionable.

Write What You Know, Sort of

Somewhere in my education as a wannabe writer, I was told: “Write what you know.” I know that’s not always true. If it were, no one would ever write good science fiction or fantasy. Or maybe, just maybe, the phrase, “Write what you know” is to give the writer a starting point. To me, “Write what you know” means a writer should use what they know to create believable characters, realistic dialogue, and spot-on settings that make the reader feel like they have stepped into a real place, maybe even a place they recognize. You don’t have to be a serial killer to write about serial killers and you don’t have to live in the future to write about the future. That’s where imagination and research come into play. I can tell you from experience, however, that if you’re going to write from the point of view of a smart ass, it does help to be one.

While The Old Crocodile Man Theory is a work of fiction, there is a lot of me and my life experiences in there. Like Kael, I lived and worked in Alaska and the Central African Republic. Like Kael, I worked at a hatchery, lived on a boat, fished for halibut, had a golden retriever that didn’t like fishing rods, and found solace in a hidden corner of the world. Like Kael, I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Central African Republic, and like Kael, I went back ten years later to run a game park and reconnect with my son. That said, I never had a friend killed by a crocodile man, though crocodile men are thought to be real things in Central Africa. If you believe the characters, the dialogue, and the settings, you might believe in the possibility that a young woman could die at the hands of a crocodile man, or that she might reach out from beyond the grave for a little help from an old friend.

So write what you know. And then write what you don’t know. That’s when it gets really fun.